Legends of the Fail

Legends of the Fail

The Adventure Begins (Session 4)

The journey back to town

6

AUG/12

So when we left the group last, they were trying to figure out how to get the fat princess, er, Helga the merchant’s wife… out of the 10’ deep pit she was in. Also there was a lockbox in the room that must weigh a hundred pounds itself.

Arthur holds up a 50’ coil of hempen rope. “You know, there are solutions…”

“Yes… yes. We could…” Ruke stares at the rope, then looks at Arthur’s face. “…do something with that rope.”

“Well, now. I think we might all need to haul her up, indeed…” Arthur nods, and calls to the lady. “My dear, can you tie a harness?”

Ruke, “…ah-ha! Excellent idea, good men.”

Helga calls up “No, no I cannot, I have no idea what you mean by that.”

Arthur, “I think we may be at a slight impasse with the lady.”

“Can either of you make a lasso? Then we could… lasso her,” Ruke offers.

“We might harm her around the spine, you know. Especially…” at her weight? Well, of course.

“One of us could go down there and try to boost her, while the others pulled her up?” The paladin seems to hit on a plan. “Miss, how did you get down there in the first place?” Ruke asks Helga, just to make sure he isn’t missing something.

Helga “They had a mule lower me down. It was so embarassing! The ropes broke when I was halfway down and I fell on my butt! I still hurt.”

“I’m so sorry about that, thats terrible.” Ruke then looks back to the others and lowers his voice. “Unless someone has a better idea, I can try to boost her up, but I’ going to need the rest of you to help pull her up.” Ruke will climb down into the pit and remove most of his gear so he won’t be weighed down. He’ll then look at Helga, “I’m going to help boost you up, okay?”

Ruke climbs down with no problem.

Once Helga agrees and seems comfortable with the idea of being boosted up, well… he gets to it. It isn’t glamorous, but he’s helping someone, so hey.

Tania blinks as she walks down to the scene “…. wow… ummm… do you need help?”

“Well, she is trapped in a hole, after all,” Arthur explains.

“She might like it down there, and her husband said we didnt have to worry about her…” Tania comments.

“Yes, please, for the love of the Gods, help me.”

Seeing Ruke down there, Tania giggles before moving to tie a rope to her Eidolon and ordering it to pull. The Lizard demon monster pulling with all his strength to help the fat lady up.

With Ruke pushing from below and the lizard moving along, they manage to haul Helga out of the pit, leaving Ruke below to climb out by himself. The rope doesn’t even snap! Lucky!

Ruke groans afterwards, then gears himself back up. “Can the lizard help me up as well?”

The lizard is huffing a bit a little annoyed at having to carry the heavy woman before looking down to Ruke licking his lips. Tania shaking her head as she looked down at him “very well… but he will be hungry from all this hard work” tossing the rope down to Ruke letting her eidolon drag him up.

“I have venison jerky if that would defeat its hunger.” Ruke will climb up using the rope.

He makes it up with the help of the lizard.

“Thank you, I appreciate the help.” He nods to the lizard and to Tania.

Tania smirks at him and gently pets the demonic lizard which curls around her looking at Ruke “Lazarus…. and he did most of the work not I”

Ruke reaches into his bag and offers Lazarus a piece of jerky. He has no idea if the creature will take it, being what it is—an aspect of Tania’s soul.

The thing licks its lips seeing the treat though only with a nod from Tania does it snatch the jerky like a snake would snatch a mouse in one quick movement.
Tania adds, “We should get back to the others…. the lady of course will have to rest without a bed tonight, the rest hold our injured”

“Umm. Wow. Okay. Glad my hand is still there.” Ruke nods, then looks to Helga. “Never fear, you may use my bedroll. I will sleep on the floor. We need a few more days to recover, since our allies are injured.”

“It may take a few bedrolls to properly insulate her, If ear,” Arthur says with an impressive amount of tact.

“Yes, because these bedrolls are so poorly made.” Ruke tries to recover.

If they wait another day, Arthur can do long term treatment again. There’s foodstores and water in the kitchen area, actually, so you don’t need to hit your rations. It’s actually better food than you’d get in rations. A little exploration also reveals an outhouse just out in the woods from the mines, if people don’t want to just go in that pit.

Darius will take the time to think on things

Tania will dote on Darius and the other sick people playing nurse

“Ugh Tania, I said I was…fine, do what you want”

“You’re not fine… your hurting, You know that your eidilon will be just as worried as me when the connection is reestablished”

Arthur proves himself inept.

“perhaps if I set them alight, they shall be like the Phoenix…”

Tania, “What?! no you idiot!”

Nothing disturbs the group, they are left their in their cozy mine, just an hour and some change from civilization. The bandit prisoners are unconscious too.

Sin wakes up, and is groggy

Helga is in the bandit’s kitchen, consuming mass amounts of bread and sausage.

Tania’s Eidilon fights the fat lady over the sausages.

Kierdan Summers shifts a little, his bare chest and its myriad of scars from various and sundry slashes, gashes, cuts, abrasions, and other injuries over his lifetime visible while Arthur works on him. He honestly looks like he lost a war with the knife-fighter’s guild.

“Well, my dear dark elf, are you feeling much better? I am afraid those dogs did a number on you.” Arthur comments.

Sin lifts a hand to her forehead “ugh, where am I?”

“Within the former bandits’ lair, which now belongs to us. At the moment, there is a heated battle going on between a lizard and a fat woman over some sausages.”

Sin shakes her head with a sigh “So I missed it all right? Did you take out Perkins and Simon?”

“I believe your musical friend ran, but the dog master… well, he has joined his pets.”

Darius, “Ugh, Kierdan you look how I felt before”

Sin scowls and shakes her head at Arthur, “Simon’s a cheating bastard. But I suppose as long as he’s far from here it’ll be alright.”

Kierdan Summers mumbles incoherently in his unconsciousness.

Ruke is keeping on watch while the others are recovering.

So another day is spent resting and healing within the safety of the mine.

Arthur Grevane gives Kierdan mouth-to-mouth.

Kierdan Summers sputters and shoves Arthur off of him as he comes back into positive hit points. “Dammit, man! That mustache tickles!”

Kierdan is probably hungry, he hasn’t eaten in two and a half days.

Arthur, “Success!”

Kierdan Summers is still working off of hibernation and adrenaline, and rifles through his pack for a waterskin to wash the taste out of his mouth. He drinks the entire skin’s worth before he realizes how ravenous he is, lifting his scarred arms to place his hand to his forehead. “How long… is everyone all right? Setanta, Sindrathiir, Tania, all of you?”

Sin nods, still moving gingerly. “No one died. Oh, and did anyone check Perkins for his magic ring?”

Kierdan Summers offers Sin a small smile and nod. “Good, I am glad that you are well.” He climbs out of bed, moving to check on Setanta. The horse lifts up from its napping slumber as his master approaches, letting out a snort and a soft whinny. “So they got you in here, too, Setanta. Good lad, good lad.”

Ruke answers Sin, “I’ve collected all the ‘items’ so far. Perkins had a ring on him, yeah. There is also a chest in the other room we haven’t touched. We were waiting for you on that one, Sin.”

Yes, they were waiting for Sin before touching any chests.

Sin nods “Right, the lockbox…” She fishes in her cleavage for something, and takes a small tin key out. “Lifted this before I left. Someone who has some strength in them go open it, it’s where we keep all the goodies. as for Perkin’s ring, it provides minor protection to whomever wears it.”

Kierdan answers Sin, “I can attend to that.”

Sin “you’ll find the merchant’s heirloom jewels in there.”

Kierdan Summers nods, taking the key and moving to find this chest… of jewels.

Tania upon hearing the word jewels perks up a bit and goes to check on the other before gently following with Kierdan, calling her Eidilon who follows after snatching more sausage away from th fat woman.

There is a relatively small metal lockbox in the chamber where they’d pulled Helga from. Relatively small but it must weigh a hundred pounds. It does have a lock, and if he tries to open it, it unlocks easily. The interior contains a bag with a thick gold necklace, set with rubies, emeralsd, and sapphires. Smaller gold rings with emeralds are also in that bag. Another bag contains 250 gold and 500 silver. The lockbox also contains a suspicious rock.

Kierdan Summers glances to Tania, his chest still covered with little more than bandages for his massive chest wound and his collection of scars. “That… what was it that you called him? Idol on? He is quite handy.” Kierdan Summers does, indeed, open the heavy iron strongbox, going through the treasure with Tania.

Arthur, “That rock is rather suspicious.”

Tania smiles “Lazarus… is my Eidilon and yes he is… he is strong and brave like Darius” nodding her head when she saw the jewels she gasped “Oh my, look at all the precious stones, its a nice treasurey….” Giggling as she moved to find a piece of jewelery that matched her bracelet.

Kierdan Summers nods to Arthur, glancing to Tania. “Yes, it is… it’s too bad that the bandits managed to spend some of their stolen treasure, isn’t it?”

Ruke looks over at Sin: “Can you tell us about the rest of this area? We didn’t look around the hideout much, save these few rooms close to us.”

Darius watches over the event with his arms crossed

Tania tries on the necklace happily “The sapphires match my eyes…. but I dunno about the emeralds”

Kierdan Summers lets out a gentle sigh. “Somehow, I doubt that the bandits managed to fence an heirloom gold necklace, encrusted with jewels.”

Tania at that she giggled “well of course not since it is on my neck”removing the necklace with a pout “too garish anyways”

Sin “Yeah, there’s some old mining tunnels along the south. We didn’t really go in there much. There’s veins of metal still exposed there if you want to do some mining, but I know for a fact that there’s some big freaking rats that patrol that area.”

Kierdan Summers gathers the gold and jewels, including the necklace from Tania, and carries it all back to the group. “I assume that the merchant is wanting his heirlooms back.”

A thousand gold for the jewelry, two hundred bonus if you bring his wife back alive.

Ruke, “I am no miner, though it is an honest labor. Perhaps it can be cleared at a later date and made safe for the people.”

Sin “So I guess my debt is paid here… do you intend to make me march back into town with the others?”

Kierdan, “It’s not up to me, but you bled for us. Damn near died for us. Hell, I’ll ride wit’ ya, if nobody else will.”

Arthur, “That you did, that you did. You took the first blows, in fact. Spared us the pain.”

Ruke “You may do as you please, Sin. Free will is the inherent right granted to us by the Gods. If you want your cut, you’ll have to come with us or give us a time and place where we can meet you with it.”

Sin grimaces for a moment. “I wasn’t expecting anything, but if you’re offering, I guess I can come up with a place to meet. Look, I’m not exactly welcome in town, but there’s a little farmhouse in the woods just near the south gate, not far from that monument statue they have out there. It’s been abandoned for like, a year or more by the looks of it. I’ll set up shop there if you want to bring me my share, or if you need me for any other jobs before I move on. So how are we going to transport everyone back?”

Sin “I have a feeling we’ll be slow going anyway, I can barely stagger at the moment, and Fatty Fatfat over there looks like she’ll have to rest a lot.”

It’s a little over two hour’s hike for the group as they stand. Helga is heavily encumbered just by virtue of being Helga, and Sin can onyl take a move action each round, so moves at half speed.

“Consider it exercise, then!” Arthur twirls his cane once more!

Kierdan Summers blinks at the oversize woman as he spots her through the doorway. "Hello… who’s this? A prisoner of the bandits? If it were up to me, the lady would ride Setanta and we’d carry, drag, lead, whatever the prisoners.”

Ruke, “The prisoners haven’t woken yet and we need to get them to town without any hinderance. I can carry one, the other will have to be on the back of the horse or carried by someone else. I imagine it wouldn’t be too hard for someone to ride on the horse with the captive. Everyone else will have to walk. Its only a hour away… well at our rate probably two hours, but it’ll be easy going.”

“We can try slingin’ the dwarf over Setanta’s hindquarters. I’ll make sure he doesn’t fall down too many times.” Kierdan answers.

Ruke, “Alright, then that’ll work.”

Kierdan, “We ready ta head on out, then?”

Ruke nods.

Darius nods.

Arthur, “Indeed, I think we are!”

Kierdan Summers nods as well, moving to the kitchen to retrieve Helga. “My lady, if you will accompany me, my fine steed and I are waitin’ to escort you back to town.”

Helga nods to Kierdan “Oh yes, it is time to go? Goody! I can’t wait to get back to town to have a decent meal.” She waddles after Kierdan. So, they head off to town, prisoners and fat princess in tow?

Kierdan Summers helps Helga into Setanta’s saddle, strapping her in as best he can before he finishes dressing and grabs a loaf of bread from the kitchen, splitting it with the merchant’s wife.

It takes two hours, and they manage to leave at mid morning, well before noon. It’ll be around noon by the time they approach town, though a light drizzle starts during the final third of their journey, taking some of the heat off. As they are walking through the farmer’s fields within sight of the gates, they can see the field where they found the half of a body after initially setting out. The fields look disturbed, as if ruptured by great furrows.

Darius hefts his blade summoning his Eidolon

“Well, this seems slightly ominous…” Arthur says.

Kierdan adds, “Slightly?”

Ruke withdraws his greatsword, but keeps it pointed down at the ground. “Just be on your guard, I can see the gates from here.”

Kierdan Summers reaches for his warhammer and shield, still cautious about the weak spot in his armor that the dwarf exploited. His weapon is, once more, tied to his wrist for safety.

They manage to get past the fields without disturbance, but as they approach the gates, there’s a crowd of farmers pestering the guards. When they near, some of them can be heard to be crying out, “Ate my poor bessie just last night!” “Damn yer cow jenkins, my wife’s been missin’ fer three days now!” The guards, so busy with the commotion, just wave the group past without checking them. Prisoners and all.

Ruke sheaths his weapon once they’re at town. He takes an interested look at the farmers, but he won’t say anything outloud.

Notably at the gates, Sin leaves and moves to skulk around the city walls toward the farm she’d told them of.

Kierdan Summers also sheathes his weapon in town, chatting up Helga. “Aren’t you glad to be home, m’lady?”

“Take care, Sin.” Ruke nods to the drow as she leaves. He’ll start leading the group towards the main guard post.

Kierdan Summers nods goodbye to the drow as well, offering her a friendly smile and a wink as he goes before he checks his equipment for anything missing once she’s out of sight.

“Well, now. A thought…” from the alchemist. “Perhaps we should all invest in healing items while we are in town?”

Kierdan, “Perhaps, once we’re all paid.”

The guard garrison has an office out front. Two guards stand outside the place, and watch when the group comes up with those prisoners. “And just what do we have here?” One approaches the group, looking over the dwarf and dingbat.

“This is a bandit leader and his associate that was giving the local area some trouble. We’re here to turn them in.” Ruke answers.

The guard nods “Ah yeah, the drow bitch told us about them. Right, let’s get them unloaded…” The other guard steps inside, then shortly thereafter three more come out to secure the prisoners. They return the rope and the manacles to the party. “I suppose you’ll be wanting the reward for ‘em… It’ll be a hundred fifty gold total for bringing ’em in alive.”

“I’m sure everyone will find that acceptable?” Ruke asks the others. He isn’t about to haggle for more, but hey, this might be how some of the others made their living.

Kierdan Summers takes a quick glance around for any reward posters.

There’s none posted outside.

Kierdan, “One-fifty? Ain’t hardly a pittance for the trouble that they caused, but it’s better than an axe in my chest.”

They hand over a hundred fifty gold, to go with the rest of what the group has found.

And with that, the group went to arrange a meeting with Callos, to return the jewels and his wife.